I don't believe anyone threatening to drop exclusivity will do it. the cost would be far greater to the contributor. and to what end? I was supposed to hit diamond this year, so I'm losing the added income in theory. my level is not dropping, I should have the 40K redeemed credits top maintain 35% royalties, but I won't get 40% for hitting diamond. I see potential for increased business. I'll take in volume what I'm losing in percentage to a certain point. I also think the marketing value of attracting more traditional pros is being overlooked. someone posted earlier that the invitation is ironic, but it's not in fact. the Agency Collection will be priced like traditional RM and RF imagery. they're just putting it all under one umbrella and bringing that traffic to iStock. why is that bad? it's already for sale elsewhere.

if they do, more for other exclusives. but, stupid move IMO. people are still in there explaining CURRENT royalty structures to one another. how can you get mad about something you don't even understand?

Non-exclusives will definitely be hurt by this. But with a 1-5% drop on just one their selling avenues.

This sounds less harsh than it really is. For non-exclusives, they will be seeing as much as a 20% (oops! 25%) drop in commissions.

I recently (sadly) became an iStock photo exclusive, but I can now look forward to seeing a 16% cut in my commissions in 2011.

I realize it is much more than an effective 5% drop in money, but for non-exclusives iStock makes up a smaller percent of their money. A 20% drop in part of one's income is much less than a 20% drop in all of one's income. So for example, if iStock makes up 25% of your income, only 25% of your income is privy to the 20% drop. And also to be honest, those that don't sell 2000 credits (about 40 dls a month if I figured it right) in a year are either just beginning or not really contributing much stock right? So most serious non-Exs will be in the 16%-18% range right? My only point really is that curiously, middle-of-the-road (Gold or low Diamond) exclusives look to be hurt quite a bit unless the facts change this week. A strange move to hurt many exclusives so much.

iStock was 40-45% of my three agency income prior to going exclusive again. I went exclusive again to lock in the diamond level royalties of 40%. That made it justifiable in the long term. They locked us into the cannisters, and gave people until August to switch and still keep their lock-in, now in September they say, 'Ha Ha, Fooled You. Cannisters mean nothing now'. So yeah, exclusives will drop. In fact, as non-exclusive would mean only 16% or 17% royalties for a lot of people, some are discussing removing their portfolio entirely on ethical grounds. After all, no images at iStock likely means more sales at the other, more-affordable-than-iStock sites. I know several designers who were priced out of iStock at the start of the year and only shop other sites now.

I can't really see any good in this for most of us. It is a bit of a Fotolia move really. Quite a kick in the teeth, BOHICA sort of thing. I too expect after a week or more they will make it just slightly more palatable, at least for exclusives, and they will breathe a sigh of relief, and Getty will continue to milk the IS cash cow dry.

15% that is pathetic. That means if you make $1,500 on there in a year, Getty has pocketed $8.500 at the same time - and I thought 20% was poor.

I really hope that this comes along with a massive price increase and the buyers go somewhere we get a better shake.

This is bad news for everyone, though probably worse news for exclusives than non-exclusives. I suspect the reason you don't see too much comment from the exclusives here is because they're busy reading the 77 page thread on Istock.

On the current structure I'd be looking at dropping back to 30% from 35% - ie. a 16% drop on my whole income, as opposed to from 20 to 17% on 30% of my income, with no real prospect of ever making it to the 40% rate. Obviously this doesn't take into account the effect of the extra competition of adding another collection to the search.

Everyone who wants to protest the proposed changes grab this image and set it as your avatars. Let's unite and express our concerns. The contributers have the power here. If we all decided to move our portfolios to another agency iStock would suffer. iStock is nothing without its contributers and we should voice our opinions together. I know it's not much But at least it's something.

As a month long IS exclusive, I think I'm going to see just what effect these changes will have before I dump the crown. What matters most to me is the bottom line. If these changes decrease my overall earnings to the point where I think I would make enough as an independent to justify re-uploading to a bunch of sites then that is what I will do.

With that being said, I'm certainly not happy, and do regret my decision of going exclusive.

I wouldn't say your opinion is meaningless at all. in fact, your strategy is precisely what most of us should be doing. waiting it out and seeing what happens is a pretty sound approach. I believe even with the changes that being exclusive is still where it's at, I think there's going to be more business heading towards iStock and that leaving would be a big big risk.

So the company that makes record profits in the middle of a financial depression has to cut the commissions and try and wrap it all nice.

150k = 19%, 1.4 Million for 20% thats one hell of a jump.

personally 25K credits so I drop to 17%

Andresr has 10x the downloads that I do and while he would growing faster etc so I would guess he is in the 300-400k credits area so 19% and not even halfway to 1.4M. Wonder if yuri is getting that many?

I wonder how many exclusives will actually give up the crown? My guess is it will be 4

it is that simple. I think I've already acknowledged that this most instantly affects non-exclusives....and we exclusives over time. but there will be increased traffic, that's one of the main motivations for the Agency Collection at least....our number of sales could go up too.

I think Fotolia, as much as I hate them with a passion, is doing the right thing trying to steal all IS's exclusives. Its a great thing to see

cant say I blame them, I'd be personally emailing anyone gold or above, match your cannister, instant upload with 100% approval and I'd even put a staff member on clicking through categories, I'd be "hey I can have your whole portfolio up in 2-3 days"

Logged

lagereek

So now canister levels are meaningless. This is a real kick in the teeth to the exclusives who helped build the business, but maybe haven't had as much time to keep up their portfolios in the past year.

I am BD on istock and I don't bring in anything close to the 1,400,000 credits per year that would be necessary to keep the measly 20%. I wonder if even Yuri or Andres sells that much on istock alone? They have affectively made the top rate just for show hardly anyone will actually get it.

For exclusives this seems just devastating. For independents it is a DANGEROUS precedent. I don't think we can just sit back and eat this one or we will find ourselves facing the same from the other sites.

Personally, I think it would be a good idea for EVERYONE who doesn't like these changes to stop uploading to IS completely until our concerns are addressed. These numbers need to at least be attainable and not pulled from the realm of fantasy.

Lisa!

Remember what I said few years back when Getty took over? how they operate etc? well if this isnt proof in the pudding, I dont know what is. Its down out shameful and should really be beneath their dignity.Maybe its time to pull out and start concentrating on ethical issues and fair play, rather then the same old monies.

how many times i told you that micros will end up like this .... now enjoy your 15% entry-level payout ... you better move to Shutterstock and the rest of the gang ... as long as they don't follow istock's "grand strategy" to squeeze photogs even more.

lagereek

I think Fotolia, as much as I hate them with a passion, is doing the right thing trying to steal all IS's exclusives. Its a great thing to see

cant say I blame them, I'd be personally emailing anyone gold or above, match your cannister, instant upload with 100% approval and I'd even put a staff member on clicking through categories, I'd be "hey I can have your whole portfolio up in 2-3 days"

FT, is in my books the fastest rising agency, they are hard but fair and thats good enough for me and the FT revenues seems to be rising all the time. Great agency!